One of Many
by DecidedlyPassive
Summary: Losing your memories is one thing. Losing everything you hold dear however, is an entirely different issue. OC, deviates from canon.
1. Awakening

**One of Many**

. . . . . .

 **The Waking Arc**

. . . . . .

 **"By blood a king, by heart a clown."**

 **~Alfred Lord Tennyson~**

. . . . . .

 **(A/N: Please review!)**

Damp.

That was the first thing I felt when I woke up.

Reaching up, I touched my face and gasped.

It was... wet. Wet and very, very cold.

' _What is this?_ '

Pulling back, I examined my hand, stretching it out and looking at it, the liquid covering it reflecting in the moonligh-moonlight?

Stopping for a moment, I quickly found the source of the light and found a window. Paying closer attention to my surroundings, I realised that I was inside a laboratory. Well, I didn't really know how I knew it was a lab...

Wait.

Why can't I remember anything?! I ran my hand across my hair and tried desperately to remember the few I knew. My head started hurting as it seemed to respond to my probing.

Brushing this feeling off, I waded around in the mysterious liquid until I found a wall, then proceeded to shimmy against it until I found a light switch.

Rubbing my eyes against the unexpected brightness, I took a look around.

Blood.

Blood was the mystery liquid I was wading around in. Great bucketfuls of blood filled the floor of the room, staining the walls with gallons of it.

I should've been sick, but the moment I turned around, it hit me.

My name. WHAT WAS MY NAME?

At this, my head throbbed, and I fell to the floor, my head slamming unto the floor and creating a wave of scarlet as my legs failed to support me. With the pain, I remembered. Not my name, but something else.

What I was.

The memories hit me wave by wave. The people I've killed, the crimes I committed, their faces as they were slayed, their screams… it was all too much. I screamed, a great searing scream, that even to my ears sounded animalistic and full of sorrow. My head felt like it burst open, and I felt only my blood thumping as my screams wracked my throat sore. I remembered where all this blood came from.

Through blood-lidded eyes, I saw the amount of bodies that filled the room, explaining the amount of blood that I saw now. However, this wasn't this what sickened me. What sickened me was what my body wanted to do, and what was happening around me.

Seemingly by its own, my wrists opened up, and as this would've killed an average human, it didn't kill me. The blood from the floor of the lab surged in great waves, then turned completely black before forming tendrils and connecting to several parts of my body.

'Wha-What is this?!'

Slowly, but surely, the blood around my feet started being sucked in, and gradually lessened.

Then was gone.

To put it bluntly, I passed out.

. . . . . .

I woke up to the cheery chirping of the birds and warm sunlight bathing my face. Blinking, I realised that I was still in the same room as yesterday.

Then I remembered what had happened the day before, and I threw up, right in front of me, and what made me throw up again was the sheer amount of red in my vomit.

After several repeats of this, I finally reached a point where I could puke no more. Retching, I cradled my stomach with my arm and crawled, losing use of my legs somewhere in the repeated expelling of my the contents of my stomach.

Unable to see where I was going, I bumped my head against a far wall of the room, pushing aside the corpse I found there, and leaned against the wall.

If anything, the events of last night seemed to create an immunity to blood and corpses, as I didn't feel sick as I surveyed the sheer amount of corpses in the room with me.

Catching my breath, I held my head with my hands, and tried to remember the few I actually remembered.

The first thing I recalled was my name. Or a name anyway.

Akabane.

'What did that mean?'

Noting my lack of a given name, I peered further into my mind and recalled a scroll was in a bag.

Somewhere in this room. Standing up so quickly it made me sick, I inspected the corpse beside me...and basically looted it at the same time.

From its pockets, I withdrew strange-looking knives.

Triangular in nature, and ending in a circular handle, a memory arose in the fore of my mind.

'So these are kunai?'

Withdrawing them, I stuck them in my pocket, deeming them useful for later.

I moved on to the next body. Then the next. The next. Next. Next.

. . . . . .

It took me an indefinite amount of hours to check all the bodies, and even then, I still wasn't able to locate the scroll. This was when I realised that maybe looting the bodies was too drastic for a first move.

So, I patted myself down.

And facepalmed. Drawing the scroll from my pocket, I was thinking 'Seriously?'

However, as I drew the scroll from my pocket, I saw that I was wearing a weird outfit.

Tight pants made of some rubbery material, and a fitted shirt made of the same material. A pouch was fitted unto the side of my leg, and after closer inspection, was full of kunai, not unlike the ones I've found. Also, one other small detail.

I was covered head-to-toe in blood. I groaned. This blood thing was getting really old y'know? Why can't the damn author of this fanfic think of something else?

Shrugging this thought off, I picked up the scroll I set down on the nearby table and opened it.

The first thing I thought of when I first skimmed through it was: 'What the actual hell am I reading?'

And seriously, the text in front of me was actual gibberish. Full of lines and squiggles. Well, not really gibberish. I could detect a pattern to the "words", and this worried me.

If I could detect patterns and identify rooms by their contents, then my memory loss might be more serious than I thought. I can still apply parts of my memory to commonplace things and stuff, but the more personal memories are gone.

Heck, I can't even remember my own name. Or my age for that matter.

From all this, I can only come to one conclusion.

Someone wiped my memory.

Shuddering from the thought of someone going through my head, I closed the scroll up again and put it back in my pocket, ignoring the blood all over my pants.

Locating a set of drawers to the side of the room, I decided to go through those first, with the intention of looting the four tables in the middle of the room later.

Opening the drawer closest to me, I peered inside and groaned. It was full of scrolls and other misc. weapons.

It'll be forever before I finish sorting through these.

. . . . . .

Wiping my forehead with the back of my hand, I carefully sorted through the things that I had found all in all.

In summary, I found at least a box of kunai, at least a storage crate of scrolls filled with the same gibberish, 3 swords of varying lengths (or was it katanas?), 3 2 matching bracelets which felt weird whenever I held it, and four different kinds of forehead protectors.

Of all of the things I've found, the protectors were the most decorative and the most interesting. One of them was a design of four. . .squiggly lines? Another one had a-what is it with all these squiggles?-squiggly circle with a point to the left. That one, specifically, had a bunch of scratches all over it. The other two were just blank, quite shiny actually.

Setting those aside, I picked up one of the swords and held it horizontally, at eye level.

' _Well balanced._ ' I mused.

Gripping it firmly at the handle, I swung it experimentally, and it was lighter than I thought. Taking advantage of its lightness, I swung it against a wall, quite awkwardly if you would imagine, and damn, it actually left a really big slice in the wall.

Holding it at arms-length, I carefully sheathed it back into it's container, and attached it to one of the loops in my pants. I'm definitely keeping this bad boy to myself. Checking out the other two swords via same experiment quickly told me that they weren't as sharp as the one I already had.

Moving on, I examined the pair of ebony bracelets I'd found and saw that they were made of some kind of strangely shiny metal, carved with snakes along the sides. I mean, not stainless steel shiny, but weirdly shiny for something of its color. And the snakes were...creepy at most.

In the middle of the strangely ornate bracelets was a seal. Well, I didn't know how I knew it was a seal, but it was probably because of my memory wipe.

The seal was on a raised bevel and was set with some jewel as its base. Not knowing any better, I just put both of them on.

"OUCH!" Screaming out on reflex, I tried to shake the bracelets off...and failed.

Through streaming tears, I inspected the bracelets closer and saw a spike had gone _completely_ through my wrist and met with the other side of the bracelet, not to mention that it hurt like no tomorrow. However, the pain, while taking a chunk of my attention, wasn't the most shocking of the current happenings.

I looked on mute horror as the spilled blood from my wound caused by the bracelet was slowly sucked into the seal, and causing the jewel to light up.

Curious, at the same time horrified, I touched the blood leading into the seal, and looked upon as blood sourced from the wound unto my palm. At first, the blood simply formed a ball, but after I thought of the spike through my wrist, the blood bunched up then formed a ball akin to a spiked mace.

Interested of the things I can do with such an ability, I quickly brushed the pain away and imagined the countless kunai I'd found throughout the day. Almost immediately, the blood floating in my hand sourced more from the wound and formed a kunai. Curious about its properties, I poked the floating kunai and my hand and my finger went right through.

'That's not gonna do anything but splatter isn't it?' Thinking of a solution to my current problem, I thought about the problems I needed to fix.

' _Density. Solidity. Sharpness?_ ' The moment I thought of these aspects, these qualities were applied to the kunai floating in my hand.

It took on a metallic sheer to it, and I let go of the control I had. It dropped into my hand, and after comparing it to one of the kunai in my pouch, it weighed exactly the same, confirming my suspicion that this blood-control ability of mine had something linked to my imagination.

Balancing out the kunai I had created, from my blood no less, I threw it, hard, against the opposite wall, where it sunk deep into it.

Well. Guess I didn't have to worry about it's capacity to weather outside forces, because it sunk handle deep into a solid stone wall.

Looking back at the things I had gathered, I reached for the first scroll in the my crate of manuscripts.

This was gonna take a while.

. . . . . .

 **Hey! You just read my first ever chapter of my first ever fanfic! Yey! Thanks for reading and please give reviews of what you think of my story, and what you think will make it better! Also, if you think that this story isn't up to your "standards", read Dreaming of Sunshine by SilverQueen.**

 **See you in the incoming chapters. Fave and follow if you like.**

 **~DecidedlyPassive~**


	2. Exploration

**One of Many**

. . . . . .

 **The Waking Arc**

. . . . . .

 **"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."**

 **~Margaret Thatcher~**

. . . . . .

 **(A/N: Please review!)**

I blinked, as I let the past day's events wash over me.

'Ugh. What did I do that hurt this much?'

Brushing off the scroll that I seemed to have been reading before I slept the day before, I rolled my neck around and tried to center where the ache was coming from.

Most of the pain seemed to center around my wrists, and when I caught sight of the spike that embedded itself into my wrist, all of the memories of yesterday tumbled into my incoherent mind.

'Ah. I was messing around with blood wasn't I?'

Making sure that my wrists were in order, I rolled them around and was certain that they would work.

Moving on, I checked if the katana that I had acquired the day before, and found it beside the scroll I had put aside earlier.

Remembering that "gibberish" was the language that these scrolls were written in, or in my case anyway, I rolled it up and put it back in the crate of scrolls and sheathed my newfound sword back in its loop.

Stretching a bit, I straightened up and looked around the room.

Well, if this room was this big, then this whole complex was going to be massive. Time to go exploring!

I brushed aside the crates i'd stacked yesterday, and made my way towards the metal, heavyset door that blocked past attempts yesterday, but now that I was done in this room, I really had no excuse to put this off any longer.

And I also had to factor in the probability of me getting bored. Which was very likely, judging from the amount if time I had spent here.

''Kay, what exactly do I do?'

Experimentally, I waved my hand around the spiked bracelet, waiting for a reaction from the bangle.

And I wasn't disappointed, as the blood slowly sourced into my palm through the sheer force of my will. I took this time to ponder my lackluster memory.

For an amnesiac, I was strangely calm and seemed to be not that panicky. Going through the memories I had, I realised that I only remembered 3 things: the word Akabane, the familiarity of a kunai, and the twinge of remembrance when I held the bracelets.

'Which, mind you, wasn't really anything to base upon.'

Frustrated, I walked up to the metal door and rubbed it a bit with my hand, as if this would bring anything. Well, it did bring one thing.

Peering from the shiny reflection on the door, a person with bright purple hair and red eyes with pale, pale skin looked back at me with a questioning look in its eye.

Jumping back, I ran a hand over my features, confused by its startling contrasts to one another. Looking back at the polished area of the door, I saw myself, with a guarded look in my eye.

'Hmm… I look really weird.'

Plucking a strand of my hair from my head, I quickly examined it, and yes, it was purple, and my strange hair color wasn't caused by a trick of the light.

Brushing off this new development, I sized up the door before looking straight at the ball of scarlet that was levitating in my hand.

In my mind's eye, I formed a conical spike. So did the blood.

Grinning, I mused to myself what exactly can I form with this. Imagining a nail and a hammer, they formed almost immediately in my hands, and I directed them at the solid, wall-like door.

Instantly, it started bashing the door with repeated strokes, the nail driving into the material. After it only its head was visible, I sent more blood into the nail, and it spread through the interior of the door, destroying the inside of the structure.

With a wail that left me wondering if I was deaf, the door of my pseudo-prison fell down, revealing the outside.

After the dust cleared, which would leave me to believe that it hasn't been disturbed for quite a while. However, upon closer inspection that the particles I'd mistaken for dust were ash.

A fire had happened. And judging by the burnt-black state of the walls all around me, it was a big one.

Picking up a stray pack strewn across the ground, I peered inside only to wrench my head away in disgust and threw it far away.

Who in the world keeps freaking heads inside bags? The person who owned this place must've been a bloody psycho.

Picking my way through the burnt remains of a fellow, or several fellows for that matter, I picked up a discarded sack on the ground and started picking up items that interested me.

I wonder if I had a mental issue. Was I a kleptomaniac? 'Cause all this free stuff wasn't helping my conscience.

Anyhow, that didn't really matter, or anything else at the moment anyway, because I sensed something. And it wasn't good news.

I regretted looking into what I had sensed earlier, or making an effort to open the door, because if neither of those happened, then I might've had a way longer lifespan than 2 days.

. . . . . .

The thing -things actually- that I had sensed earlier got me intrigued, because if someone else was in the same situation as I was, then there was a chance that I could get some answers. But hey! If it didn't, then at least I got another person on the same boat as me.

Past me, I have two words: f**k you.

What I thought was a someone, was actually a something, and that something was trying its very best to kill me.

It was a weirdly built humanoid, golem at best, and it attacked by throwing chunks of stone at a immpressively dangerous speed. One of said stones hauled ass across my face, leaving a scratch along the width of my forehead.

'Ouch! I already learned my lesson, okay? Stop rubbing it in!'

Jumping up with surprising speed, I dodged an incoming rock, and threw a kunai back in retaliation. With bated breath, I waited to see if it had an effect.

. . .

It bounced off.

Welp, that's a lost cause. Continuing with my dodging, I realised that I was slowly getting tired, and this drawn-out dodgeball (dodgerock?) was getting dangerous.

Thinking quickly, I fished around in my pocket for something useful, and pulled out a scroll.

Seriously?! Of all the things that I might've pulled out, I got a useless scroll!

However, after comparing it to the insigna on the bracelets, I realised that the design on the scroll was similar to several aspects of the seal I had on the bracelets.

Thinking fast, I pulled the scroll out to its farthest reach and applied a bit of my weirdly telekinetic blood to it. It turned blue.

Waiting for a more dramatic reaction from the paper, I lost precious reaction time scrutinizing it, and I was forced to stretch the scroll in front of me, kinda like a shield.

'Well, this was how it was going to end. Me and a piece of paper against a rock twice the size of my body.'

'...'

'If this was janken, I actually would've won.'

With a surprising twist, I confess that I am actually crazy. Closing my eyes, I prepared for the end, only to be denied of my expectations.

WHAT THE HELL?! The rock sank into the paper with a deceitful 'thunk' and disappeared. In my moment of flabbergastedness, I noticed that the golem was equally surprised by what happened, and paused in its attack.

That was not a pause it can afford.

Acting quickly, I scrolled it back up and drew my katana, before wildly slashing all over the golem's body.

It lapsed, as if surprised, before falling apart. Inside of it, a core popped out, steaming and turning red with heat.

Deciding I didn't want to touch the thing that seemed to power my foe, I panted, taking deep breaths as I took in the situation.

Sparing a glance at the pieces of the golem, I saw that the sword slashes cut completely through its body, shaving off massive pieces of its body during my attack. The end result was less than appealing.

'Just have to say, the end of that fight was more anti- climatic than I thought it would be.'

Sheathing the sword, I picked up the scroll that had saved my life and peered at it closely. It looked the same, if not glowing blue with my blood, with one tiny difference.

In the middle of the seal's last circle, I saw a word: 'Rock'. Well, I thought it said rock anyway. It was written in the same gibberish as the last scroll I opened.

Huh. It looked like it contained a rock. The same rock that was thrown at me moments ago. Curious if I can take the rock out again, I rolled it open again, facing opposite of me, and applied a bit of my blood again.

Rocketing out as if it was never contained, the rock whizzed out of the scroll and slammed into the opposite wall, leaving a very large crater.

Looking at what had happened, and what it can do, I came to one conclusion: I'm definitely keeping this.

Wrapping the scroll back around the rock, I applied a bit more blood unto it and it disappeared into it with a soft 'whump'.

Grinning at the prospects of what I can do with such a thing, I pocketed the scroll I had and pulled out another one I had kept in my pouch.

I'm going to seal all the damn rocks I could find.

. . . . . .

Wiping my brow, I set down all the scrolls I used in my latest sealing venture, and started counting them.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

Yeah, definitely more than I should've needed. Wow, I really did have a lot of spare scrolls in my pouch.

Pocketing them, I surveyed the latest room I was in. All afternnon, I've been beating up endless golems who have been attacking me whenever I tried to investigate a room. And trust me, it was getting annoying.

Moving on, I kept up all the scrolls and tucked them back in my pocket and walked out the door.

Looking at both directions of the hallway, I sighed, tired of the day's trekking.

' _Dammit. Who made this place? An endless hallway designer?'_

Opening the next door beside the one I've already left, I ducked my head in.

And pulled it out, dodging a rock the size of a boulder thrown at me.

' _Holy hell!'_

Ducking my head back in, I counted 3 different golems lobbing rocks with the intention to kill. Drawing my sword, I quickly formed a blood kunai in my hand and rushed inside, slashing my sword against the golem nearest to me.

In sweet satisfaction, I watched as the golem I slashed split into two. Snapping my mind back into the battle, I dodged a few more rocks and flipped off one in mid-air, trying to get closer to my opponents.

Stumbling as I landed on the floor from my mid-air flip, my head got clipped by a rock that whizzed dangerously close to my head.

"Ouch! Goddamn it, I'm gonna beat your asses!" Rushing forward, the golems seemed confused by my outburst and lost precious reaction time, felled by 4 wild slashes of my blade.

' _Whoo. I'm getting better at this.'_

Massaging the sore spot on my head, I watched yet again as the blood from my wounds seeped into my bracelets and lit up the jewel yet again.

Shrugging off the latest attempt on my life, I grabbed my collection of scrolls, which was growing to an impressive size,and threw it all over a nearby table, which was growing to an impressive size, and checked if I had any spares left.

Sorting through my seals, I pushed the used scrolls to one side and the unused ones to the other.

Leaving me with a towering pile of scrolls on one side and a quite sad collection of exactly two scrolls on the other side.

Picking up the two scrolls left, I inspected them closely, making sure that they weren't used yet. Pulling open the first one, I made sure that it wasn't used yet.

Applying some of my blood to the design, I wrapped it around one of the mega size boulders, making sure that it covered all of its girth. Channeling some of my energy to my hands, I waited until they turned blue, concentrating on pushing it into the seal.

I found out about this trick...or remembered, to be more exact, when I tried to find a way to make more use of the seals I already had. Then this popped into my head.

' _So this was chakra?'_

The word popped into my head the same time I learned how to channel it, and the word felt...natural. Like it really was the name of the energy I was molding, and not some just amnesia-corrupted memory.

The bright flash of light that accompanied my sealing pulled me from my thoughts, and I grabbed the scroll in mid-air.

Tucking it in my pouch- this was a really spacious pouch- I grabbed all the other scrolls from the table and pushed them into the said pouch.

Reaching for the last scroll on the table, I frowned when I realised that it wasn't a sealing scroll but a scroll. Only a scroll.

However, when I touched it, that was when the bad things started to happen.

And for the record, I did _not_ know that scrolls can mess with your brain.

. . . . . .

 **What's up?**

 **DecidedlyPassive here. To those who had read up to this point, I give thanks. Means that the stuff I'm writing isn't boring. Or that boring. Anyways, I need ideas for a story title. For this story. Please.**

 **As always, review, rate, and fave.**

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **~DecidedlyPassive~**


	3. Dance with Death

**One of Many**

 **. . . . . .**

 **The Waking Arc**

 **. . . . . .**

 **Strong minds suffer without complaining; weak minds complain without suffering.**

 **~Lettie Cowman~**

 _. . . . . ._

 **(A/N: Please review!)**

 _(I staggered, as an onslaught of images razed my mind._

 _My eyes were hazed by a bright scarlet, obscuring my vision with a red tint._

 _Rubbing my eyes rapidly, I tried to ignore the voices overlapping in my head as I tried to cure_

 _my impaired vision._

' _What is this?'_

 _As if in response, a word floated up from the depths of my damaged mind:_

' _Akabane.'_

 _As I tried to understand the memories rushing to meet my mind, I numbly registered the pain of falling down facefirst on the floor._

 _Legs weakened, I held my hands to my face, horrified by the images coming to me._

 _They were memories of death._

 _I watched, transfixed by its cruelty, as hundreds fell before me, bloody and wounded beyond my wildest imagination._

 _It was as horrifying as a nightmare, except I can see every minute detail as more and more faceless men and women screamed in terror in my mind's eye._

 _Eager to stop this mental madness, I tried to know who was the one causing all these deaths, backing away from the fore of the memory, and turned around to see the instigator._

 _And I fell to my knees, both in the real and the mind, as I gaped at the person I had seen._

 _It was me. All of this destruction was me._

 _Another wave of memories engulfed me as I knelt there, taking in the gravity of my actions. I was filled with self-loathing as I watched yet another man die before me, arms raised as if to block the inevitable._

 _Words flitted through my eyelids, sinking into my mind and memory. I read some of them as this illusionary haze started to lift, freeing my mind from itself, if not only for a while._

 _Repulsed by my actions, I watched as a newer batch of images attacked my fragile mind, blurring the line of sane and insane in my head._

 _From afar, I watched as a man with features more akin to snake than human bound me to a chair, countless others in the same situation._

 _This image quickly left my scope of vision, replacing it with illustrations of hands in different positions._

' _Hand seals?'_

 _These images then dove straight into my mind, forcing me to-)_

 _. . . . . ._

I woke up in a pool of cold sweat, breathing in short, halting gasps.

Pieces of images ran wildly through my brain, blurring the pictures to swirls of color and echoing reactions in my mind's eye.

Clutching my head in my hands, I tried to hold on to the fragments of memory rushing from my mind.

Already, the details of my attack were hazy at best, and most were already recalled to whatever place they came from in my unsatisfactory mind.

Swaying slightly from the pressure of recalling, I was immediately aware that the scroll that caused all this was missing.

Standing up so fast it left my mind in a blur, I waited for a moment for my awareness to stabilise.

What good would I get if I wasn't fully aware of the things around me, and I was more than happy to sacrifice a few minutes to the cause.

After I was sure that my head wasn't going to feel like it was split open after a sudden movement, I then surveyed the room around me to check if any unknowing golems had stumbled in during my relapse.

I quietly registered through the windows of the room that it was already dark outside, meaning that a respectable number of time had p assed in my fitful slumber, and the bright sun had given way to the foreboding moon.

'Ahh. My head feels like it was put into a blender then gave me brain freeze.'

Shaking my head to try and dull the tiny throbs of pain I felt in every minute that passed, I endeavored to walk out the door of the room . . . and fell.

Ouch.

'Well, looks like I have to crawl.'

Arranging my sluggish limbs to what seemed to be a crawling position, I crawled underneath the low-hanging table to look for the fit-inducing scroll.

I wanted to investigate it. To know why it had brought me such terrible memories, only to steal it away from me again.

Going over my mind while searching for the scroll, I recalled that that was the scroll I had remembered about in my first waking moments. It was the scroll that had inserted the word 'Akabane' in my head, whatever that meant.

The word held a steady place throughout all my attacks, like a bastion in my nightmares. It really didn't help that I didn't know what it meant.

Bumping into something, it shook me from my thoughts long enough to maneuver away from the wall that had disturbed me.

This bump made me realise that looking for the scroll was a mission in vain, that it had most likely disappeared along with my memories. To where however, I had no idea.

Finally regaining feeling in my legs, I stood up quickly, aware that my current position may prove fatal in a fight.

Stumbling around, I tried to get my center of balance to obey, and pushed off the wall.

Moving quickly towards the doorway, several sounds made my blood go cold.

Voices.

. . . . . .

I ran through all the ideas I had in my head about encountering strangers in an abandoned, burnt-out complex.

All of them led to one course of action: running away. Which, mind you, isn't really a bad choice in most situations. I was actually about to use this course of action when I encountered a wall.

No, I'm not talking about a figurative wall, but a legitimate wall was blocking my exit.

'What the hell?'

Scratching my head at this new development, I was pretty sure that I was traveling an endless hallway this morning.

Wait. Was it this morning? I had no way of keeping track of time, and there was a possibility that a day or two had passed in my fit.

Glaring at the moon while thinking of ways to escape this situation, I was drawn back to reality when a clatter of rocks right outside my door.

'Holy crap!'

Forming a kunai in my hand, I listened with bated breath as the trio of strangers lounged outside my door. They seemed to have stopped to discuss someone they'd been looking for.

Squinting my eyes, I saw a musical note etched on the forehead protectors of the two of them.

"-where is this damn kid? Orochimaru-sama told us that we only had a day to find him!" Through a crack in the wall, I saw that a solidly built man had said this, waving his arms about like a chicken. Trying to see what else I can find, I was interrupted by his teammates' response.

"Calm down Terumi. The kid's around here. I can feel it." A fearsome figure stood by the door of my room, a sword the same size as he hanging from his back.

I found myself thinking if I can take on that massive sword head on when the worst happened. Their third teammate, a red-headed girl about my age, stepped into the room and looked around.

'Holy crap. holy crap, holy crap.' I thought as I slowly crouched into a more defensible position towards the shadows, gripping my katana tightly. Thank god this building was creepy af. Imagine if this place was properly lighted.

"Karin. Do you sense anything?", Terumi asked, stepping into the room carefully, now holding a pair of kunai in his hands. The man with the big-ass sword followed.

They spread out the room, the two men covering the entrances and the girl slowly walked throughout the room.

"I sense...", the girl named Karin frowned, her eyes scanning the room. My heart stops as she peered into my hiding spot.

"I can sense chakra traces, but whoever was here is long gone. Maybe more than 30 minutes." I gripped my chest as I let out a low sigh.

They started to file out the room, the red-haired girl stalling in the doorway for a moment, then finally leaving.

Ah. My poor heart. I'm handling way too much stress than I'm supposed to. Where's my meds?

Careful not to make any sound, I stealthily stood up from my position and started to tread silently towards them.

Right into the gaze of the red-headed girl's eyes.

I barely had time to mentally think 'SHIT!' before she snapped up and screamed at her partners.

"TERUMI! AMBO!"

Immediately, I unsheathed my katana and formed several blood shuriken in my hand. Flashing in front of me, the sword-nin pushed away Karin towards his partner and heaved his massiive sword against me. Flicking up my katana to block it, I groaned as the weight of the sword bore upon me. Forming a blood kunai in my hand, I threw my shuriken at the approaching sound-nin while breaking the block I held against the swordsman.

Gathering my energy into my feet, I jumped backward, throwing normal shuriken as I did. Dodging the follow-up slash of the nin, I jumped over the hail of weapons thrown by his partner. Flicking my katana at the sword-wielding shinobi, he quickly blocked and rushed forward with a kunai. Realising that I had no means of defending, I formed a blood kunai in my hand and quickly deflected the swipe. Due to this, I lfet my back open, and hissed as a kunai embedded itself into my back.

Feeling the warm blood gushing from the wound in my shoulder, I leaped backwards yet again and pulled the weapon out.

Cursing under my breath, I peered at the swordsman.

"What do you want?", I queried at the hostile nin. They seemed to be temporarily thrown off by this question, and I took satisfaction at this.

Squinting at me, the swordsman cocked his head sideways. "You know what we want. Come quietly, or there will be trouble."

"What if I don't wanna?"

"Then Orochimaru-sama would excuse me for doing this."

"What do yo-" I was cut off short as the man in front of me dispersed into smoke.

Whipping my head around, I only had enough time to register the man in front of me before feeling the cold blade plunge into my gut.

. . . . . .

My eyes widened as I felt the weapon twist viciously in my stomach before getting jerked out. A wave of pain washed over me.

I fell to my knees, my hands numbly trying to cover the bleeding hole that came from the sword that ran me through. A gush of blood spewed from my mouth, splattering the floor scarlet.

"This would've gone better kid. Should've listened." the swordsman grunted, wiping the edge of his massive blade on his pants.

Flicking my head backward, I fell on my back, and the other sound-nin started patting me down. Stripping me of my weapons, he threw these towards the girl.

"Karin. Check if any of these are worth taking back to Orochimaru-sama." The girl nodded, and started to sift through my meager belongings. Then the man

Letting my head lie on the ground, I realised that I was going to die here.

With no memory of my past, and not even knowing my age, name, crap I don't have any memories that I can truly call mine. Except these. . .techniques.

I let my mind wander through the hazy memories, and I felt blood pooling beneath my back and reaching far enough that my hands were soaked crimson too.

'Ah. This sucks. Can't believe I die after three days of nothing.'

Raising my hand to my face, I felt blood dripping from my hand to my face, filling my mouth with a renewed taste of copper.

My vision starting to be hued scarlet, my mind started to pulse uncomfortably, forcing my eyes open against the sleep of death.

Surprisingly enough, a single word arose to the fore of my mind, underlining one thing.

'Survive.'

. . . . . .

 **Hey! Thanks for reading this chapter of my fic! I really appreciate the support. If you can, please find time to follow, fave, and review!**

 **~DecidedlyPassive~**


	4. Bloodlust

**One Of Many**

 **. . . . . .**

 **The Waking Arc**

 **. . . . . .**

 **"Death may be the greatest of human blessings."**

 **~Socrates~**

 **. . . . . .**

 **(A/N: Please review!)**

As if acting on orders, my body started moving on its own accord, denying my right of movement. It forced itself to kneel and put its hands together.

Realising that I still had control over my eyes, I scanned the room and saw that the girl had a hand covering her mouth, expression horrified. The two responsible for my wounds looked at me with wary eyes, weapons drawn on their sides.

Narrowing my eyes at the swordsman, I let my body loose, and it happened.

My conscious was shoved to the back of my mind, and something else replaced it, driven by one word alone.

'Blood.'

Immediately, my hands started forming seals, faster that I've ever seen in my head.

Rat. Tiger. Ox. Snake. Rat. Too fast for my eyes to see, my body suddenly leaped towards the two, seals finishing in mid-air.

"KETSUEKI YOROI NO O-KAMI: BLOODY ARMOR OF THE GREAT GOD!"

Feeling a surge of energy pulse through my wrists, I saw as blood started pooling beneath my feet and rose, forming an impenetrable armor around my person, spikes sprouting up all over me.

My mouth moving on its own, whatever possessed me cocked my neck sideways and said

"Are you prepared to bleed?"

A red haze hued my vision, heightening my senses. I unconsciously formed a claw and slashed at them viciously, leaving them no other choice but to try and fend for their lives.

Stumbling backwards, the two of them managed to block my first attack, leaping backwards as they regarded their opponent's new form.

Narrowing, his eyes, the sound non nodded at each other and started forming seals.

In retaliation, I quickly formed claws in both hands and rushed at them, hoping to interrupt their techniques. However, before I was able to stop them, they both leapt backwards, seals completed.

"Sound Release: Great Sound Wave!"

Cringing as the effect of the attack washed over me, I shrugged the effects off and pushed on, ignoring the particles of rock that stung my face. As I leapt towards the swordsman and his partner, he completed his hand seals and shouted, "Sound Release: Spiraling Echoes!"

Clapping his hands in the last seal, a more powerful sound wave engulfed me this time, a spiraling spear of sound rushing towards me after the initial attack. Strengthening the armor on my chest, I grunted as I tanked most of the attack, but not without a bit of it sinking into my chest. Flashing forward, I slashed at the sound-nin with a claw formed with blood.A metallic clang rang out as the swordsman blocked the attack. But his partner wasn't as lucky.

With a gurgle, the other sound-nin sank to his knees as a claw embedded itself in his stomach. Another swipe sliced his body in half, warm blood splattering my face. Slashing at the still-warm corpse again, I writhed in pleasure as more and more blood was getting absorbed by me, an action that was . . . oddly satisfying.

Laughing at the apparent weakness of my past opponents, I whipped my head towards the swordsman, who was standing in front of a cowering Karin.

Smiling gleefully, I started treading towards the two, forming another claw and a spike in my hands.

"Do you have blood for me?" I whispered, blood gushing from my mouth as I grinned

Rushing forward, I lost all other urges other than to spill the blood of those in front of me.

"HAHAHA!" The two flashed away, running as fast as their legs can carry them from my bloodlust.

We chased each other all throughout the complex, and before long, our surrounding turned into the forest, us leaping through the thicket.

Giving chase, I enjoyed my heightened speed as I played cat and mouse with the two. The two looked at me with panicked eyes as they realised that they had no chance of outrunning me.

'Ah. So I was in a forest?' I mused, as I surveyed my surroundings.

'Well hidden.'

Trading projectiles, kunai and shuriken flew throughout our chase, causing minor wounds that eventually wore both of us down.

Forming a lighter kunai, I took careful aim and threw it against the man's back. Since I formed it under custom specifications, it splattered against the man's black shirt, crimson a startling contrast to midnight black. Focusing, I flexed my fingers and forced the blood droplets to become mini spikes, and forced them into swordsman undefended back.

With a cry, the man's lapse in concentration was all I needed to go in for the kill.

Flashing forward, I struck the swordsman's head towards the ground, possibly breaking his neck.

I was proven wrong however, as the man I hit poofed into a wooden log, splintering apart.

I merely smiled as I felt a sword strike at my head, and turned at my head to stare at my would-be attacker.

"Come quietly, or there will be trouble you say?" I pulled back my hand and slashed at him with a spike of blood, drawing blood at his side. Hissing from the pain, he fell to the floor and started forming handseals.

Throwing an array of spikes at the nin, the girl quickly formed an earth wall, grabbing my attention as she successfully blocked my attacks. Forming another array of spikes, I threw them at a speed that garnered no hope of defense, trapping the girl against a trunk of a nearby tree.

I sent an array of spikes towards my the girl, successfully trapping her against a tree.

Snapping my attention back towards the swordsman, I quickly parried a sword strike that would've beheaded me and slashed in return. A grating sound occurred, leaving a long scratch in the side of his sword. After a quick glance, the man continued to force through. A slash here, a parry there, the sword continued to be battered against my attacks.

Letting up for a moment, I peered mockingly at my opponent.

"Looks like that sword's not going to last for long, ne?"

Snarling with rage, he swiped at me with a speed I hadn't expected, and I was rewarded with a wound crossing the front of my torso. Feeling the blood drip down my already bloodied clothes, I merely stared at him, realizing that I had felt no more than an itch in that attack. Morphing the blood from my wound, I formed a blood spike and sent it towards the sword nin.

Dodging backwards, he deflected the incoming spike and went into hand seals, before screaming

"FUUTON RELEASE: GREAT BREAKTHROUGH!"

Immediately, a gust of wind threw me off my feet and into a branch hanging off the ground, squelching as it impaled itself in my wounded stomach.

Hissing in the pain that followed, I sent a hand towards the blood that had pooled in the ground and formed a spike larger than the others I've made before.

"Try to parry this!" I sent the spike I formed towards my enemy.

The swordsman' eyes widened as he took in the severity of the attack rushing towards him.

Raising his sword against my attack, I watched with eager eyes as the swordsman failed to block the brunt of the spike, and it inserted itself in his abdomen, buried base deep. He fell to his knees with a thud, hands caressing the spike embedded in his gut.

Flexing my fingers, I dissolved the spike back into blood and drew it towards me, absorbing it again into my body and seals.

Flexing my fingers yet again, I glanced to the side to see the girl looking at me with tear-stricken eyes. Somewhere, in my still same mind, told me that the girl had nothing to do with this, and my bloodlust waned for a moment.

'This girl did nothing to harm me.'

Rising a single finger to point at the girl, she flinched, bowing her head down. Cocking my head at her actions, I pulled back the spikes into crimson, freeing her.

Looking at me with a mixture of confusion and fear, I merely pointed to the forest behind her.

"Run. Back to your master. I have no quarrel with the likes of you."

The girl needn't be told twice, and ran into the thicket, away from the carnage. Looking back at my captive, I formed a handful of senbon needles and threw them towards him, knocking his sword from his grasp. Forming a claw, I grasped the sword and brought it towards me, judging its weight and balance.

Well, damn. This thing was heavy. This guy's a pro. Definitely. More for me.

Trudging towards the wounded man in front of me, I noticed that he was starting to for, handseals, somehow through all his wounds. Frowning, I hefted the sword and plunged it into the man's chest, deliberately missing the heart to prolong his torture.

Twisting the sword in his wound, I mockingly leaned towards his ear.

"Where's your master now?"

The man stared up at me, a hoarse whisper rising from the recesses of his throat.

"M-monster. . ."

I grinned at the insult. As if a half-dead man who lost against a kid would affect me. Pulling out the sword from his chest, I failed to notice a seal lighting up on the man's neck, swirling into purple mist.

A disembodied voice rose from the depths of the man's ruined lungs.

"Curse Seal Activate!"

. . . . . .

As if possessed, the man suddenly stood up and started forming seals, jumping around my attacks as if he was healed. Snapping his neck up in an unnatural angle that was accompanied by a crack of bone, the man finished making his seals and screamed, accompanied by that creepy voice.

"SOUND RELEASE FORBIDDEN TECHNIQUE: HYPERSONIC MASS DESTRUCTION!"

"SOUND RELEASE FORBIDDEN TECHNIQUE: HYPERSONIC MASS DESTRUCTION!"

The effect was immediate. A large burst of force ruptured the world around me, driving me to my knees as my hands quickly clasped my ears as waves of pure sound disintegrated the very soil and wood around me. I mildly felt the effects of the sound, feeling my very skin flake off in patches as it tried to withstand the onslaught.

Forcing my eyes to respond, I cringed as I saw my enemy, no, the corpse of my opponent turn into nothing as the force of the attack beckoned for its payment. Fearing for the effects the sound would make on me, I tried to call a wall of scarlet to protect me. Flexing my index, it immediately responded, a flowing wall of red forming a wall as thick as me against the attack. The sound somehow muted, I stood up and tried to walk forward, a mistake I should've foreseen.

The sound wave multiplied in size, ripping through my defenses and flinging my body into a nearby tree.

I only had enough time to feel my skin being torn apart by the fatal concert before I blacked out.

. . . . . .

I snapped my eyes open to the blaring afternoon sun, heat washing over my body.

Squinting my eyes at the unexpected light, I attempted to take into account my body, and was responded by aches and pains all over my body. Propping my body up with my elbows, I tried to survey the area around me. However, the sudden change in position caused my head to ache, and before I knew it, I passed out.

. . . . . .

Blinking groggily, the first thing I noticed that the sky was deep, midnight blue.

'Shit. Did I just faint for the whole day?!'

Wait. I noticed that the trees around me looked different, and were whole.

'What the hell? Did someone move me in my sleep?!'

Trying to turn my head around, I was immediately plagued by a wave of headaches, and promptly passed out.

. . . . . .

A flash of red, a flash of green. What? Youthfulness?

. . . . . .

Am I being carried? My body is swaying side to side. Ugh, my head aches. What is this?

. . . . . .

My hands are clutching something soft. . .and grey? A metal plate opposes my fingers. A sound suspiciously like laughing rings out.

. . . . . .

 **Yo! DP here, and thanks for reading Chapter 4 of my story! I am currently looking for collaborators on this story and PM me if you're interested. Updates would probably be cut down now that school has started but hey! I don't really care. Still gonna update!**

 **See you at the next chapter** **!**

 **~DecidedlyPassive~**


	5. Trouble Ahead?

**One Of Many**

 **. . . . . .**

 **Kakashi Hatake**

 **. . . . . .**

 **"The definition of darkness is the absence of light. You cannot see darkness. Darkness cannot exist with light. Darkness cannot be explained. Darkness only comes when everything else has gone. Darkness is nothing. . .then darkness is everything. "**

 **~Unknown~**

 **. . . . . .**

 **(A/N: Please review!)**

To be honest, when Hokage-sama sent them out for a mission, he did not expect to find a lost child. Granted, the child was lost in Konoha's borders, meaning the kid was their business, but nonetheless, he really didn't appreciate getting his hair mussed around by a half-dead kid.

And, well seeing all the trouble the weirdly indigo-haired kid made later on, it would've been preferable if that was the case.

It all started earlier that day. . .

. . . . . .

As I trudged up the too-familiar stairs of the Hokage tower, I mentally groaned. I was already expecting everyone's outburst over my chronic lateness. Realising that I had come to a stop in the middle of the steps, I shook my head out of my stupor and continued trudging on. I had an image to maintain after all.

Finishing my trudging along, a short burst of impatience had me flying up the stairs silently, like a phantom wraith. There, I was met with startling crimson eyes, eyebrows raised in amusement. Ignoring my peer, I merely gave her an eye smile and pushed open the door opposite her. As we went in the room, we were met with the strangest sight. Rather, we were met with the inability to see anything at all. Except for an especially startling shade of eye-watering green and a pair of horrifyingly bushy eyebrows.

Shoving my eager friend away, I sent a small salute to the other person in the room, a bearded man with a cigar lighted at his mouth. Nodding in response, he pulled Gai off me and cocked his head towards the table, where a man in a hat encompassing most of his head sat. Thanking Asuma for his help, he pulled Gai off to a far corner and let me pass. Stepping forward, I gave a small bow to the man.

"Hokage-sama, what do you require of me?" I respectfully stated, inquiring the elder before me. Giving me a weary smile, he placed a scroll on the table, stamped red to indicate its urgency. Pushing it forward, he gestured at me to pick it up.

"Kakashi, just drop the act. There's no more time for this old man to second-guess my shinobi.", he said, pseudo-glaring at me for a moment before continuing. I eye-smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of my head while taking a step back.

"I have called all of four of you today to address a very serious problem that, quite frankly, requires elite jonin like yourselves to address." He paused, nodding at me, Gai, Kurenai, and Asuma. Sighing, he gave the shocker.

"A base of Orochimaru has been found merely kilometers away from Konoha's gates. I want you four to go investigate it. I have previously sent an express team of chunin at the location, but I have yet to receive word from them."

Ignoring our shocked expressions and questions, he waved us off and continued. "Aside from inspecting the base, there are likely to be human experiments in the complex, so eliminate those beyond saving and take in those who still have a chance." Nodding once he had finished his initial overview of the situation, and waved our questions forward.

"How unnervingly un-youthful!"

"He set up a base that close?"

"Orochimaru experiments on children right?"

"Isn't he-?!"

Cutting us off before the inquiries become overwhelming, he silenced all of us with a stare.

"Kakashi will be the squad leader. I expect you four to be here by nightfall. That is all. Leave." In short, clipped sentences, he revealed to us how affected he was with the news himself, and the look on his face pushed us out of the room faster than any physical force can.

Blinking at our current predicament, I stared at the others, opening my mouth to speak.

"Well, that coul-"

"KAKASHI! MY ETERNAL RIVAL! YOU ARE THE SQUAD LEADER YET AGAIN! THIS MISSION IS MERELY A TESTAMENT TO MY RIVAL'S GLORY! HAI! I WILL ACCEPT THIS CHALLENGE BY RACING ALL OF YOU TO THE GATES! AND IF I DO NOT SUCCEED, THEN I SHALL DO 500 LAPS AROUND KONOHA! ON MY HANDS!"

With this exclamation, Gai left us all gaping at his antics with a cloud of dust. I blinked.

I blinked again. I swear, my so-called rival getting more insane by the day, no, by the hour. Stretching my neck, I sweatdropped at my remaining squadmates.

"You know, he'll be insufferable if we let ourselves be beaten by him."

. . . . . .

I was really starting to think that Gai might be a bit insane. Like, needs-a-psychiatrist insane. Meeting us at the gates-beat us to it-,he merely gave us his trademark 'good guy' pose complete with blinding smile and double thumbs up before stating that he'll meet us at the base and rushing off. Tired of his energy, I simply flickered towards him and grabbed him by the scruff of his flak jacket.

'Gai, I swear you're going to give me a heart attack one of these days.' I mentally moaned, before pumping my arm full of chakra (Gai's heavy) and throwing him back to Asuma and Kurenai.

"Hey Gai."

"YES, MY ETERNAL RIVAL?!"

"I'm the squad leader, right?"

"YES! SANDAIME-SAMA SAID SO!"

"And I'm your rival too. right?"

"OF COURSE! WHY DO YOU DOUBT SUCH A THING?!"

"BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO SHUT UP!"

Wilting slightly at my tone, he looked at me with a childish glare before stalking off beside Asuma. Pinching the bridge of my nose, I shook my head in his childishness. And people call him the foremost Taijutsu Master. What a shame.

Shrugging off such thoughts, I cleared my throat and stood in front of my team. Procedures were procedures after all.

"Ok. So we are embarking on a mission that might cost us our lives so if anyone on this team wants to write a will, or a letter of goodbye, or any related to the subject, please do so now." Nodding at my squad, I continued.

"Make sure that you agree with the mission objective, and in the case that you don't, there's really no choice. And-"

"Yada yada yada. You know Kakashi, acting like a teacher isn't gonna grant you the Sandaime's title ya know.", Asuma drawled.

"Professor.", he added mockingly. Rolling my eyes at his antics, I sighed. I was sighing a lot today.

"Well, let's move out team."

. . . . . .

We had spent no more than only 30 minutes when we arrive at the site the scroll highlighted. Our quick travel was caused none other than Gai himself, as he threw himself into the trees with surprising speed.

'God damn it Gai. If we're not going to be at full strength when we get there's I'm going to kill you.' Lacing my soles with chakra,I had no other choice but to match the speed of Gai, as to not be left behind by my own squad. Irritated that no one had taken my side in my attempts to slow Gai down, I scowled at my squad.

There really were times when I wished that I was still ANBU. You learn to value solitude when surrounded by oafs like Gai. I mean, I had nothing on the guy. It's just that, he can be annoying. A childish jonin. However, I did not have time to delve deeper in my uncharacteristic whining because that was when I felt it.

The moment we arrived at the site, the first thing I felt was the overwhelming amounts of ominous chakra. There was no other word for it. Just waves and waves of dark energy, and even from a distance I can feel it's bloodlust. Crouching into a battle stance, I raised a fist for my allies, and we stopped for a moment to regroup.

"Okay. I'm pretty sure that you guys can feel that chakra too" a quick nod confirmed my statement "and we'll be approaching the source. Kurenai, cast a genjutsu over us so we can travel unseen. It'll be useful too if the chunun squad sent here didn't attack us on sight."

With a quick jerk of her chin, the crimson-haired kunoichi launched into a set of seals. Moments later, she slammed two palms to the ground, and I felt her chakra shrouding us. Resisting the instinctual rejection of the foreign chakra, I shrugged the feeling off and lifted my headband to reveal my Sharingan. I was pretty sure that whatever was emitting that strange energy was something I needed to use my full strength against. I glanced to the side to see Asuma prepare his blades, glowing light blue from his win-natured chakra. Even Gai was uncharacteristically silent, and his face took on a hard edge to it.

Already feeling the more-than-slight drain using the eye take over my body, we tread forward, steps silenced by either pure skill or chakra techniques. As I glanced around the area, avoiding the tunnel vision that came with adrenaline, and tried to pick up clothes. Sad to say, it really wasn't that hard. Trees were wrecked all around us, blood covering a good part of every tree we passed by, and I smelled the traces of ash and the presence of the coppery smell of scarlet. My eyes zoned in towards a prone figure beside a tree, back supported by its trunk. A wound the size of a palm was found on her gut.

Flickering forwards, I tentatively stepped forward nearer to the fallen chunin, arm extended to check the woman's pulse. Pressing my fingers lightly against the her neck, I sighed as I felt no pulse.

'Damn it. Not another one.'

Standing up, I faced my squad. All of them were looking at me with bated expressions. I shook my head.

The effect on their expressions were immediate. Asuma tightened his grips on his blades, frowning as he took in the news. Kurenai merely looked away, mourning the loss of another kunoichi. With a somber expression, Gai moved forward and took the kunoichi's body, taking care to not disturb her pose. Flashing upwards, he turned to me and nodded. I nodded back. Gai will move the body to a safer place where it would not be mauled by animals or enemy nin.

Pushing forward, I flickered to the treetops, gesturing for my team to follow. I narrowed my eyes. The bastard who took a Konoha life's not going to survive this.

. . . . . .

It wasn't hard to track the guy whoever did this. Even without my summons, the ninja left a wide trail of destruction that ranged from splatters of blood to downright destruction of the path. Along the way, we found the bodies of 2 other chunin which we immediately sealed into storage scrolls, unfortunately not having enough time to personally bring the bodies out, and a survivor who has lightly wounded. His news wasn't so hope-inducing either.

"H-he's crazy! He w-was manipulating blood like-like-"

"Okay, you'll be fine sir. Please compose yourself and report back to Konoha in T&I. We thank you for your work.", Asuma quickly cut off the stuttering ninja, and started patting him on the back. Gai, seeking yet another challenge, patting the man on his back even harder and caused the man to turn white. Kurenai seeing this, immediately took him away from my partners and slowly escorted him out of the ruined clearing, shooting a look at the two.

Rolling my single visible eye, I crouched down and started inspecting the tracks on the ground.

'Hmm. Blood's still wet.' I mused. I narrowed my eyes at this. If this blood's still fresh, and that chunin was by that tree at the edge of that clearing...

Looking at where we found our wounded chunin, I started thinking about what could've happened.

'So he was there, wounded and heavily breathing...'

My eyes widened. The chunin was recently fighting! Whipping my head to the side, I sensed a chakra signal waiting in the bushes, the same ominous chakra we sensed before.

'Shit!'

Ducking my head, I barely missed the lightning-fast kunai sent my way. Flipping backwards, I dodged the follow-up hail of projectiles and sent a few on my own. Putting my hands into seals, I saw two blurs pass my peripherals. I inwardly grinned.

No matter how strong this guy is, no one cannot go through the dual attack of Asuma's blades and Gai's melee and not get hurt. The man, seeing this new threat, flashed backwards and blocked Gai's first attack. With his other hand, he blocked Asuma's twin knife slash with his bare arm, blades cutting into it deeply. With no hiss of pain, his blood pooled into the ground for a second before it morphed into a spike with a speed that barely left Asuma and Gai enough time to flash backwards.

Without stopping, he immediately rushed towards Gai, crimson lacing his arms. Blocking his first strike, Gai launched into a incredibly complex kata that even me would have difficulty blocking. However, what unnerved me was the obvious ease that the indigo-haired blocked all of them, and launched into his own set of strikes. With disbelief, I watched as he simultaneously battered Gai down and blocked Asuma's lethal strikes with his blood. Obviously this man had a bloodlimit.

Sadly enough, I was wrong. In the clash of blades, the man blocked the first two powered strikes of Asuma and quickly flicked up his weapon up, sending Asuma flying.

Even with my Sharingan, all I saw was the glint of his purple hair as he quickly sent Gai the same way. My eyes widened even further. Coming after them before he can finish them off, I finished my seals and started charging up. My hair stood up in static as I sourced lightning chakra to my hand

"CHIDORI!" Seeing Kurenai as a brunette blur race towards the man, I quickly chased after her. Grabbing her shoulder, I threw her backwards and used her momentum to throw me forward. No way was I going to let Kurenai fight something that could beat Gai and Asuma into submission under seconds. With an outraged "Hey!" I rushed forward and plunged my hand into the man's chest before he can get his guard up.

Looking up, I reveled in the satisfaction I felt for the revenge I took upon the fallen chunin, only to shrink back in horror.

Gazing at me with a horrified expression, was a child. His red eyes flashed with worry, and fell blank, hands clutching the fist that was embedded in his chest. His grip softened and his eyes grew hazy, and his body slowly slipped out of my hand. Falling to my knees, I frantically tried to cover the child's wound with my hands, trying to stop the blood that sputtered out. His head raised, locking gazes with my eyes as his mound mouthed two words.

"I'm sorry." With that parting words, he fell, lifeless. How cruel this life has been. His position reminds me exactly how Rin died under my hand.

. . . . . .

Gingerly picking up the already-cold child up, I trudged silently towards the clearing, my mind too numb in the thing I've done.

'I killed another child.'

Flashing forward, my teammates stepped soundlessly beside me, Asuma patting my shoulder.

"I have to say, even if that fight ended in me getting severely beaten, you cannot deny this kid's talent." Asuma said, looking at me with sympathetic eyes. Gai nodded in affirmation.

"Yes, that kid was endearingly youthful in our battle. He quickly dispatched me with skill that gave even me difficulty in retaliating." Gai nodded in agreement. Kurenai spoke up.

"Even if this child is extremely skilled, he still caused the death of two Konoha shinobi and got what he deserved. Shame that he had to be one of Orochimaru's." Kurenai stated, before walking towards the complex in the distance. Disturbed by the situation in front of me, I snapped out of my stupor and frowned.

'How didn't we find this place in our patrols?!'

Shaking my head, I looked back at the child's body in front of me. Its blood-red eyes were still open in blank horror, and its violently purple hair was strewn about on the forest floor. I had done this 2 times today, and it doesn't get easier every time.

Numbly going through the procedure, I pulled out yet another sealing scroll from my pouch and drew a line of black around its width, signifying it as a body scroll, and laid it out in front of me, applying chakra to it to extend its reach, before gingerly supporting the boy's head before placing him gently on the scroll. Asuma and Gai stood morosely to the side.

After all, if this child wasn't an enemy of Konoha, they both would've loved to teach this kid. It takes a lot of natural skill to beat two men who've worked all their lives to perfect their craft only to be beaten by a child who looks like he's lived a fraction of their lives.

After aligning the kid's limbs to the seals, I placed a hand to his forehead and started applying chakra. Or was about to anyway. At that moment, a burst of chakra flared from the body, jerking the lifeless body upwards. Black, poisonous chakra sourcing from the boy's mouth, it lifted the body before us, necked cocked at a strange angle.

 **"Ah. Thanks for the chakra dude. Lifesaver."** The chakra pulsed weirdly, and a creepy chakra rose from the boy's throat. I narrowed my eyes and flashed my Sharingan.

"Who are you?" I queried, looking straight at the chakra. It swirled with both dank and blue chakra, forming weird patterns on the boy's body.

 **Hehehe. That's a good question Kakashi. Why don't you tell me who, or what, I am ne?"** , I flinched as he mentioned my name. Whoever, whatever, this is, it knows my name. I had a feeling that it was this chakra, not the boy's actions, caused the boy to kill the 2 from a while ago. It's aura seemed dangerous. It stank of death.

 **"What's wrong bro? Unnerved by the fact I know your name? Lemme give you a hint. My big bro was the one who killed your blond teacher! Any guesses?"** The chakra's voice started to distort and become deeper, echoing all around us. I felt my squad tense around me as waves of killer intent washed throughout the clearing. My eyes widened as I realized that this thing mentioned Minato-sensei. What the hell?

"Your brother killed Minato-sensei?" I asked, trying to confirm what he said. The only thing that really killed Minato that night was...my eyes widened in realization, and my knees buckled as I concurred what the chakra was.

 **"Looks like you guessed something, yeah? Come on bro, spill."** An image of a skull surrounded the boy's face, set in a creepy grin. The katana at the boy's side started to shimmer, a double image of it being a weapon with a long curved blade at the end. I shivered as I saw the similarities this . . . one held with the jutsu that Minato-sensei used to fight the Nine-tails. Glancing at my teammates, I looked back at the chakra and gave my guess.

"You're a shinigami, aren't you?" At this, the skull grinned an even wider smile, and in addition to its scythe and skull, a cloak of some kind started forming from the chakra and goggles appeared at the boy's collarbone. Asuma and Kurenai took in a sharp intake of air, and fell into a more offensive position. If there were tailed beasts in our world, then it would make sense that a shinigami got sealed into this boy. The shinigami started clapping its hands.

 **"Great job Kakashi! You're the first one that guessed right! The other two that failed a while ago, I reaped their souls immediately. Thought this kid might use the extra knowledge anyway"** My eyes narrowed as he mentioned the deaths of the two bodies we found. Realizing that no matter how powerful we four were, we stood no chance against such a being. After all, shinigami were gods.

 **"Ah. You're right on that one; we are what you call gods, however minor we are, and we posses the badass skill of killing you! Or stealing you souls and whatever. By the way, did not appreciate the fact that you killed this kid. He's a good one y'know?"** I stiffened as I heard an underlying threat in his words. He opened his skull to speak once more, but this time, the image was starting to fade from existence, being no more than apparitions.

 **"Well, the kid's a-waking and the sun's a-shining. We'll talk later, yeah?"** At this, the chakra abruptly withdrew and formed a single core inside the boy's chest, seen by my Sharingan. Taking a step closer towards the boy, I immediately stepped back as I felt the chakra rise again.

 **"And I'll** appreciate **if you** stop trying to **kill the kid.** He's the last of his clan **y'know? Name's Shi** by the way. Kid's name. . . **I really don't** know, had a memory seal in his forehead but I can't sense it anymore. **Peace!"** The voice switching between his and the boy's voice, it signified the weakening of the shinigami withdrew back towards the boy, and disappeared. The boy's body fell, and a smell of burning flesh filled the air.

Worried for the boy's condition, I flashed forward and caught him before he fell to the ground, turning him over, I watched with awed eyes as the chest wound filled itself up, and was gone. Shaking my head at the things that happened today, I sighed.

'When you think that tailed beasts are the only thing to worry about, guys like this pop out. Damn it Orochimaru.' Looking back at my team, I eye-smiled at them before lifting the kid up on my back, piggy-back style. Ignoring the amused looks my teammates gave me despite what just happened, I quickly flickered to the treetops, signalling them to follow.

"Well that was eventful!" Gai, at this proclamation, started laughing hysterically. Closing my eyes, I tried to shut off the stream of youthfulness that was sure to come my way.

"KAKASHI, MY YOUTHFUL RIVAL, WHAT A NEGOTIATION! YOU-"

. . . . . .

As we neared Konoha, some of the tension I still felt from the battle loosened, and I was able to adjust the child to a better position on my back. Whipping my hand across my face, I deftly blocked the branches sent my way by Gai, eager to beat me in something. Their amusement in my current predicament wasn't lessened by the fact that the boy ran his fingers rather irritatingly over my hair, stopping a few times as he brushed my hitai-ate, but continued nevertheless.

Dodging yet another branch, I shot an irritated look at Asuma and Kurenai, the former merely shrugging his shoulders and the latter barely containing laughter. How the hell did these guys pass the jonin exams?!

Slowing down to a stop near the gates, the child on my back grumbled at the sudden change in speed, but promptly adjusted by giving me an unconscious head rub. Ignoring my squad's renewed mirth, I quickly handed my ninja identification card and my mission scroll to Izumo, the chunin gate guard for the day. Narrowing his eyes at the information, he nodded curtly and motioned for the rest of my squad to present I.D.

Afterwards, he shot a quick "Hokage-sama told me to escort you four when you arrived." before facing the Hokage Tower and flickering off. Rolling my eyes at his militaristic, albeit reasonable manners, I held up a handsign to show the ANBU in the shadows that the child was safe, before flickering after my escort.

In moments, we arrived at the Hokage's door, and after shooting a look at us -especially Gai- he nodded assent and pushed open the door. In the room with the Hokage was a heavily bandaged man arguing with the former.

"I did it for the good of the Leaf! What reason coul-"

The Hokage shushed him with a finger to the lips, much like a kindergartner would silence a classmate, before mentioning us through a series of hushed whispers. Visible eye widening, he violently twisted towards us, an expression of superiority and outrage on his face, before maintaining an impassive facade and walked right past us. Raising an eyebrow at the man's behavior, the Sandaime merely gave a weary sigh before dismissing the Izumo. Nodding at his dismissal, he bowed then quickly disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"Kakashi. It seems that you have returned from your mission in record time. Aside from that child that you so obviously carried all throughout the entirety of your arrival, what else have you gathered in your outing?" Down to business then. Shrugging off the child from my back, I carefully settled the child unto a chair before giving my report.

"Halfway through our recon, we were met with several difficulties that made. . ."

. . . . . .

 **Thanks for reading my first attempt at writing another POV! As I always say, thanks for reading, it really helps, and a shoutout to Lrr Ruler of Omicron 8 for giving me a splendid review last time. Thanks! And I've decided to add a death god to the story: isn't that great? Anyway, first three reviewers get a shoutout, and everyone else a mention. You will be mentioned if you review *hint*.**

 **~DecidedlyPassive~**


	6. Shinigami Says Hi!

**One of Many**

 **. . . . . .**

 **Wandering Arc**

 **. . . . . .**

 **"Every new beginning comes from another beginning's end."**

 **~Seneca~**

 **. . . . . .**

 **(A/N: Please review!)**

The first thing I felt as I came to was the cold.

The bitter, deep dark cold that swirled in spirals around me, engulfing me as if they had minds of their own. Lifting my eyelids, I was only met with a dark space stretched out before me, barely lit as it is. Looking around, my body felt an odd resistance to my actions and I looked down. And almost fell to my knees.

Or my lack of them anyway. I was formless, my body holding no shape as I flitted around like a phantom, a weird sensation engulfing me as I tried to maneuvers myself into wholeness. Closing my eyes, I tried to figure out where I was and was taken aback when the thought popped up in front of me, in bright white letters, eye-wateringly obvious in the darkness.

'What is this place?' I watched with fascination as my thought formed yet again in front of me in elegant script. Thinking of another, an image this time, I was rewarded with a metaphysical version of the thing I've thought, a smoky kunai appearing in my hand. With this proof, I realized that I was in my own head, or rather, my mindscape.

Shaking my head, I laughed. What the hell am I doing inside this? Trying to recall what had happened to me while I was passed out, I had vague remembrance of a gray-haired person. . . wearing a hitai-ate!

Damn it! Am I in a hidden village?! Wracking my brain for more information, I held my head (inside my head, I know; thinking about it hurts my head too) and rocked on the balls of my formless feet. What can I remember?

Closing my eyes, I tried to remember what had happened before I passed out. A fight? Sound ninja? Scrunching my eyes tighter, I think that a-

"Yo." A finger tapped my shoulder, disturbing me from my concentration. There's someone else here?!

"Augh!" I shouted in surprise. Scrambling backwards, I put as much distance between me and the person in my head, feet flailing.

"Hey, hey! Chill out dude!" The owner of the finger shouted, a conciliatory tone in its voice. Forming a mental wall, a projection of a wall popped into existence in front of lme, blocking whoever was in my mind direct contact with my consciousness. Hearing scrambling feet, I formed a wall another wall in that direction, trying to hamper the one trying to attack me.

"Hey! That hurts ya know!" Ready to form another projection, I quickly formed a mental knife in my hand. No way was this guy-wait. How does he know I think he wants to attack me?

"Please! Stop projecting! You're destroying me!" Curious as to how I'm destroying this . . . person in my head, I slowly lowered the wall in front of me, bringing the intruder into view. What I saw only enforced me to raise the wall again.

An androgynous person with strangely skeletal features was in the other side of the wall, waving sheepishly. Sporting grey-ish hair with reddish highlights and neutral clothes, it looked like the weirdest projection I've seen so far. Even though my memories seem to be lacking, I'm pretty sure mental projections reflect the gender of the person controlling it. What the absolute hell is that? Glancing to the side, I saw the walls gathering energy from it, making the mental projection flicker. It-

"Hey! I'm a who y'know!" I blinked in surprise. How can he, no she, no it(?) know what I'm thinking-

"We're in your head dude. Of course I'll know what you're thinking about." I squinted. This guy was in my head. Explains how he/she can decipher what I'm thinking.

Looking back at what it said a few moments ago, I called out.

"What do you mean I'm destroying you?" The mentioned person responded by nervously rubbing the back of its neck.

"Before I answer that, stop referring me as an it! I have rights y'know!" I rolled my mental eyes. Eye (geddit?) swear, if this is my inner darkness, i'd rather die. Realizing that the choice was mine since she was in my head, I thought-wait, why am I even doing this?! And why does she have a verbal tic?

"I'm getting destroyed because you're using my consciousness to form your projections, dumbass" My hands twitched at her insult. "because you, good sir, are knocked out." Bowing with a flourish, I ignored her grandstanding and took control. I guessed as much. This place feels foreign.

With an outstretched hand, I flexed my fingers, much like how I would control my blood outside. Immediately, shackled appeared on her wrists. A chair formed behind her, and another flick of my fingers sent her flying towards it, shackles waiting.

After she had been properly shackled, I formed another chair and sat in front of her. At this point, her head had been forced down, blocking my view of her expressions.

"Hey" I started cautiously. Why? Somehow, this person feels dangerous. " Lift your head." She lifted her head.

Stifling a gasp, I narrowed my eyes at her. She didn't look like that a moment ago. . .

The person sitting in front of me did not have neutral features anymore, and even though she still had the same features, she was now noticeably feminine. Her hair ran past her shoulder in curly waves, and her face had sharper cheekbones.

Rolling her eyes at my reaction, she huffed. "Would've thought the guy that imprisoned me would have been smarter" Raising my eyebrows at this, she continued her rant "Didn't you realize that you've been referring to me in your thoughts as a she? Then it'll only be natural that I'll be shown as a she in your mindscape, dumbass."

My eyes widened at this. I had that much control?! Shaking my head against this new development, I rested my elbows on my knees and looked straight at my captive.

"What are you?" I queried, narrowing my eyes.

"Whaddya mean what? I'm a who!" She replied, face coloring.

I sighed. Why is this child in my head? "Fine. Who are you?"

She beamed. "I'm Shi! Nice to meet ya! What's yours?"

"I don't kno-" As I was about to reply, she quickly cut me off. "And while you're talking to me, at least turn solid. I mean, it's hard to try and sell cute when you can't even see your eyes."

I stared at her. What the hell is wrong with this person?! Shaking my head in the sheer weirdness this girl exuded, I held the bridge of my nose and replied.

"I don't-"

"Ah, ah! Turn solid first!" She sang, swinging her now unshackled feet. My eye twitched. Does she even realize that she's at my mercy right now? And how did she get those free? Brushing these thoughts off, I focused on trying to turn solid. If she's gonna be this annoying, it was worth turning solid.

"Hey! I'm not that annoying!" She shot at me, blushing red.

"Shut up. I'm trying to turn solid."

"Nya nya nya nya nya nyaaaa!" She sang again, swinging her feet off her chair, which strangely enough, was now levitating an inch off the ground.

Ignoring her, I concentrated on my normal human form and how it felt, trying to do the same for the form I had now. Slowly, a sensation that felt strangely like flowing water engulfed my body and blocking my eyesight. This feels super weird.

"I know right? Good job on getting it on the first try!" How can she still be annoying me if I can't even see her?

"Shut up."

"Awww. You said that a while ago!"

"I know. Shut up."

"Meanie."

"No I'm not. Get out of my head."

"Meanieeeee."

"Shut up kid."

"You're so cute when you try to insult me!"

"Argh!" I had enough god damn it! I opened my eyes and closed down on the annoyance.

Rushing towards her, I lifted her by the shoulders and shook her. Hard

"Shut up damn it! Who are you and what are you doing in my head?!" I had enough of this girl. She making my head hurt and I was already in my head! Continuing to shake her, she flopped in my grip. It wasn't that hard, I was about a head taller than her. However, when I caught sight of her face, I immediately stopped and set her down. Her face was red and her face screamed 'GOING TO CRY' signs, as her chin trembled and she was rubbing her eyes vigorously.

Oh shit. I don't like crying kids.

I fell to my knees immediately and tried to shush the girl, but I can already hear the dreaded hiccups that came before sobs-OH MY GOD, SHE'S USING BOTH HANDS TO RUB HER EYES! Damn it, damn it, damn it, please, please don't cry.

She's starting to OPEN HER MOUTH! Cringing away from what I expect to be a blast of snot and tears, I plugged my ears with my fingers, ready to hear the über annoying sounds of. . . laughing?!

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU FELL FOR IT YA DUMBASS!" The girl was rocking back and forth on the ground, completely disregarding the shackles and the chair, wiping tears of mirth from her her eyes. A tic appeared on my forehead. My eye twitched.

"AHAHAHAHAHA-"

"SHUT UP! GODDAMNIT, WHOTHEHELLAREYOUANDWHATAREYOUDOING HERE!?" Pausing for breath, I sucked up air again, ready to launch into another-

The girl merely stared at me with a bored expression, a finger raised in front of my face to shush me. Her expression was extreme serious.

"Fine. I'll stop kidding around."

Calming down, I felt my heart rate ease down to its normal pace, and the tunnel vision I got from being infuriated faded away. Wow, I was calming down hella quick. Looking back at her, I noticed that she was clearing her throat.

"My name's Shi Nigami, and I'm a death goddess."

. . . . . .

After rubbing her scalp raw, I set her down on the chair again, making sure that I added twice as many shackles. The girl looked forlornly disheveled, gray-red hair all over the place.

Sighing, I clasped the back of my neck.

"You're such a pain..."

"HEY! I WAS COMPLETELY SERIOUS!"

"Yeah right."

"WHY ARE HUMANS SO FUN AND ANNOYING AT THE SAME TIME?!"

I sniffled childishly. "Stop talking about yourself."

"$&!?& &%#!"

"You know, stating random figures won't help you."

"I am a shinigami! And my name is Shi!"

"Why am I not surprised that I don't believe you? And that was a bad attempt at a pun by the way."

"I KNOW! You are soooo annoying!" She huffed, turning away from me, arms crossed.

"Just calm down already..." I raised my hands in defeat before sweat dropping.

"Arrrgh!" Slipping out of the shackles again (how is she doing that?!), she strutted up to me and poked me in the chest.

"I. AM. A. DEATH. GOD." She insisted, poking me once for each word. Rolling my eyes at her childish actions, I projected a couch into the mind space and sat down. She stared at me like I had created something repulsive.

"Sit down." I said, patting the space beside me. If I can't get her to shut up the normal way, the then it's better to just listen to her story about being a shinigami.

Still staring at me suspiciously, she carefully sat down, never breaking her gaze with me. After a while of shuffling around in the couch at least (the couch was too big for her), she turned and continued staring at me.

I waited for a while for her to start. She kept staring.

"Ummmm..."

Yeesh. All this staring was creeping me out. "Are you feeling oka-"

"Are you going to stop annoying me now?" Why does she keep cutting me off?! And I'm the one that's annoying? Feeling my killing intent rise up, I quickly pushed it down.

'She's just a kid...' I thought wearily.

"I'm not a kid!"

'But I wanna kill her so bad...' I amended my thoughts.

Freeing my head from such thoughts, I ran a hand through my hair and adjusted myself on the mental couch. "Go. Tell your story."

"Okay! Hi, my name is Shi, and I'm a shinigami!"

"Go on."

"I'm also the reason why you're still alive ya know. I healed ya when ya died against those pathetic sound nin. Still can't believe that you're that weak..."

My eyes widened at the news. "Wait, you're the reason why all my wounds healed immediately?!"

Muttering underneath her breath, she glared as she replied to me "Yeah. I'm also the one that influenced you to kill them, 'cause the normal you would've thrown up in the middle of the battle. It's a weakness by the way."

Taking the insult in stride, I wracked my brain for memories of that battle. One by one, they came to me, together with the echo of the bloodlust that had possessed me at the time. I shuddered as I relived the grisly deaths the two Oto nin faced against me. One, ripped apart by my own blood, the other disintegrated by sound. I made a face.

That's just sick. Seeing the girl in a new light, I realized that I basically owed this girl my life. That, at the very least, merited some gratitude. Exhaling in sheer stress over this girl, I ran a hand through my hair and looked the girl in the eye. "Thanks. For like, saving my life on three different occasions." I said, looking apologetic.

Waving my apology off, she continued her story. " To be honest, the reason why you're even alive right now is because of me. Even if it's by accident." My eyes widened (again), a hand covering my mouth. I'm supposed to be dead? Continuing, she said "You see, as a shinigami, we're sent off to different places where we'll reap the souls of those who have died, usually in places where a large amounts of death occurred. I'm a pretty young death god, but because of my relationship with Big Bro, I got sent off to this guy Orochi."

Cupping my chin with my hand, I mulled over the things she said.

"Who's Big Bro?"

"Oh, he's just the boss of the shinigami guys and my big brother. He's the guy that gets summoned whenever you do the Reaper Death thingy." I nodded thoughtfully. So her brother was the summon of the Reaper Death Seal? That's good news... wait.

My blood ran cold. Oh crap. What would he think if her little sister was inside another person's mind? Sensing my thoughts, Shi immediately comforted me, nudging me a bit.

"Hey chillax! I'm not as young as you think ya know. I'm about 200 years old." My face paled as she said these in a flyaway manner. This kid was 200 years old?!

Seeing the look on my face, she gave an exasperated sigh. "I swear I get this kind of reaction every time. . .and this time he doesn't even get killed..." she muttered, before raising her voice. "200 years old's like 14 years old in your terms by the way, so we're about the same age. Time travels fast up there. With Kami and all..." she trailed off, clearly uncomfortable of something. I cocked my head curiously. What happened up there?

Shaking her head as if in a trance, she lapsed back into her explanation. She had hijacked my body after all. "This guy Orochi killed off all the people in the complex type were in using stone golems and Sound nin. It was really weird to see those pieces of stone throw themselves ya know? The reason why was because his base was found out by some really unlucky Konoha nin, but before the sound nin on standby could kill them, they had already reported it. Anyway, I spotted the guy and started following him around. While I was ghosting him, he muttered something about Konoha and ran off. It took me about, what, three days to go through all those rooms just stacked with corpses? That's also when I found you inside a room that was just littered with bodies." Pausing to see my reaction, which admittedly, was kinda shocked, she continued "You see, us shinigami have powers that we can use whenever we want but with a cost. One of these powers are possessing dead, soulless bodies. That's what I tried to do with you, and lemme tell you, your body sucks..."

I raised my eyebrow at this. What did she mean by my body sucks? "When I reaped your soul, I wasn't aware that you had two souls currently inhabiting your body" Wait, what? I had two souls?! "so when I reaped one of the souls in you, it felt particularly evil, so I felt justified in taking your body. However, when I tried to possess you, something that really sucked happened." So I had two souls and it felt particularly evil. . . this death god's not giving me much to work with, is she?

"When I initiated the possession, it turned out that you still had a soul in you, and that has really bad effect for shinigami who try to use souled bodies, which is a term for unreaped souls. What happens is that the soul tries to absorb the other soul in order to compensate for the stress put on the vessel, which results into a 60-40 chance of me dying and getting absorbed and a 90-10 chance that the body share becomes successful. Essentially, you're very lucky and my luck's gone to shit." As she finished, her face grew redder and redder until it had turned into a violent shade of crimson. Well, at least she was annoyed by the whole thing too.

Going over her words, I recalled the mind-boggling two-souled issue. How and why would I be containing two souls?

"Um, Shi right?" She nodded. "What did you mean by the fact that I had two souls?" Her pained face rising again, she heaved a sigh.

"Your body was holding two souls, one in your core and one located on your neck. I really don't know much about the one on your neck, but it felt like that guy Oro. It was also smaller than a regular soul, so it didn't really take that much space." Ah. So this guy Oro is the cause of everything. Raising the a question that had been on my mind for a few minutes already, I spoke up.

"Is this possession related to my memory loss?" At this statement, Shi looked extremely uncomfortable, twirling her strawberry-grey hair in her hands. With a nervous chuckle, she explained. "Hehehe. . . there wasn't enough space in your body to share a second soul, so I had to do an emergency soul reaping, but I wasn't quick enough which resulted in me getting stuck with you and most of your memories gone." My eye twitched. So she was trying to get my body after all. . .

Her face turned pale, and I realized how much I can do to her now that she was trapped in me. I could do-no, not the things I should be thinking about, try to focus on the task at hand dude. Resting my face on my palm, I must've looked particularly pissed because the death god started waving her hands in the air.

"H-hey! Please give me chance! Being possessed by a shinigami has its benefits you know!" She flustered, hands everywhere. Although, benefits from a shinigami? This could be interesting. . .although with this shinigami in particular, I really didn't know.

"And also, I found out one thing about you you know! Only one memory though..." she drifted off sadly, and I felt a surge of pity course through me. Must be hard accidentally wiping off someone's memory. Not that I cared, since I was the victim.

"What's the memory?" I asked, quite interested in what she learned.

Rubbing the back of her head, she chuckled nervously. "Weeell, it's just a word actually..."

I raised my eyebrows. "What is it?"

"Arima. Your name's Arima!" She exclaimed, probably happy that she had at least a bit of good news. I, however, just sighed. This wasn't even important...

Returning my gaze at the girl, I contemplated what I would be able to do with a second soul. Hmmm... I think that I could maybe assimilate it into me and get its abilities? But I didn't really know what would happen, or the assimilation's after effects so... that's out. Maybe a power source? Like mentally strip her of her sentience? I don't know if that'll work though. Might kill me and absorb her completely, a way I did not want to go through.

Looking at the girl/death goddess, I saw her looking at me with puppy-dog eyes. Damn. She was cute! Blushing at my own thoughts, I sighed and massaged my mental temples. Might as well get over our situation.

"Hey Shi, can you do anything aside from reaping souls?" I queried, actually interested if shinigami had special abilities besides 'I will destroy you and your soul!' crap. Mulling the question over, the shinigami stood up and faced me.

"I think it'll be better if I showed you." She said, before standing up in front of me. Curios as to see where this was going, I watched closely to what she was doing.

Taking up a stance, she put her palms together and I felt a burst of ominous chakra in my mind-scape, a black aura bursting to life around her. Narrowing my eyes at her, I scanned myself if anything was happening to me.

...

Nothing. Shi, finishing whatever she was doing, turned to me and stood there. My eyes rising to meet here gaze, my face blanched as I caught sight of her.

What was staring back at me was a pair of red-eyed with black replacing the whites of her eyes. I shuddered. That was not a pretty sight.

Ripping my attention away from the obvious, I set my attention on her surprisingly wide forehead. "What are those eyes?"

Blinking several times, she looked back at me. "These are one of my abilities. They're called Death's Eyes, or Shikakyugan. They grant you the ability to see. . . well, things really. Pretty sure it's unique to the user." I shook my head. I don't think that ability is safe to use. Even the shinigami didn't know what it was. I looked at her again, and now she was trying to balance on a mental ball. Definitely not.

"Deactivate that Shi. It's creepy." Seriously, those things-

'BOOOOOOOOM!'

A massive explosion ripped through my mindscspe, sending me and Shi toppling over each other. A few more 'BOOM's rang out before my surprisingly fragile mind steadied.

However, I paid this no mind as I glanced over to my now-kinda-permanent companion before I felt my face turning extremely red. I didn't know the steps to a relationship with someone in your head, but I'm pretty sure compromising positions weren't a first step.

Sprawled over me was the death goddess, whose face was blushing furiously as she realized the position we were in.

"Uhhhh..."

"Get off, get off, get off!"

Standing quickly, my attention was once again whipped away from my mindscape as I saw a large white crack race across the area.

"What is that?" I asked, facing the shinigami.

Looking like a tomato, probably still thinking about a few moments ago (would've thought 200 year olds would've been more mature, but no), she said "Someone's forcing you to wake up. Fast."

That would explain the crack-

All of a sudden, I felt my consciousness rise, before pulling me out of my mental world.

. . . . . .

 **Ehehehehehehe... I added a freaking shinigami into the damn story.**

 **AWESOME! Anyways, if you paid attention while reading the chapter (I don't), you would read that this Shi character is basically the cause of Arima's problems. Like, all of them. Btw, the bloodlust that he experienced (chapter 3) was a byproduct of Shi's chakra leaking out, and he's basically a jinchuriki of a freaking shinigami. I'll explain the relationship of shinigami and humans and where Shi came from in the following chapters. I'm sorry if Shi sounded like a dude in the Kakashi POV, but as mentioned here in the chapter, her gender(?) wasn't set yet until Arima referred to her as a female, and that was when she turned into, well, a she. Ugh... I can already see the complications of writing this story...(*facepalms while banging my head repeatedly against this desk*) Hope you like Shi's character and personality! Really enjoyed teasing Arima in this chapter lolz. I'll add a bio next chapter for both of them, in case anyone's confused about their appearance. Maybe a pic too.**

 **Yours truly,**

 **~DecidedlyPassive~**


	7. Bios!

**Arima**

Full Name: Arima * (last name will be released lolz)

Species: Human (had to say)

Gender: Biologically male, identifies as male (maybe)

Age: unclear, assumed to be 14

Facial Features: High cheekbones, pointed ears (elf-like), ruffled/unstyled hair

Hair Color: Iris violet with shades of eggplant

Eye Color: Crimson red (vibrant)

Height: 5"10

Weight: 203 lbs

Likes: Sharp things, exploding things, brightly colored things, physical exertion, reading, things that catch attention in general

Dislikes: Socializing, boring activities, Shi when she's hungry, naruto(the topping), pink stuff, getting hurt, ants(only ants)

Personality: Mostly apathetic, introvertly extrovert, possessive over things he likes, gets pissed off easily,

Abilities: Blood-form, jounin-level taijutsu, jounin-level chakra control, storage seals (combat), jounin-level kenjutsu, and Kage-level amnesia

(Did I mention he was over-powered? Oh yeah. I just did.)

 **Shi**

Full Name: Shi Nigami

Species: Lesser Deathgod

Gender: Formerly androgynous, now female

Age: Physically 14, in reality 300

Facial Features: Pale, long eyelashes, dimpled on the right cheek, long-haired

Hair Color: Grey, with highlights of red

Eye Color: Red, shifts to green and grey at times

Height: 5"2

Weight: weightless (she's a death god after all)

Likes: listening to souls, dead people, Arima, exploding things, eating souls, beating people up, humming, fighting

Dislikes: "Big Bro", Kakashi for 'stealing' her hair colour, physical exertion(weird), people that don't die easily, hunger, perverts

Personality: Overbearing, annoyingly optimistic, cheerful to a fault, cute at times, nagging, serious when pissed

Abilities: Death's Possesion, whatever a deathgod can do, lightning-attribute chakra, fuuininjutsu (basic), Kage-level lightning jutsu

(Yeaaaaaah, she's definitely a one-jutsu win isn't she? Should've planned out these people more...)

 **Hey! I'm not going to explain my absence for the 5+ months that had me acting like a ghost on this site, because I don't really give a shit (way to show appreciation for the readers, yeah?), but anyway, hey! Thanks for reading this very, very short update that shows a bit more information about the stars of my fanfiction, and remember to review, like and follow!**

 **By the way, those peeps that want to request a character or a plot-deviation, feel free to pm/review to see your change in my story!**

 **I'll probably update in a month or two, since school's messing up my Internet schedule (which goes -*ahem*video gamesa random newslettermore chess game forums yadayadayadadone), and I found this really awesome MMORPG called ToramOnline, and that's taking up a lot of my time too.**

 **See ya!**

 **~DecidedlyPassive~**


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